SOSH Real Fantasy Draft 2014: Draft Order, Rules, and Draft Thread

Leskanic's Thread

lost underscore
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Some roster moves.  First, waiting for Bundy's rehab:
 
Dylan Bundy to Reserves/DL (from SP)
Dallas Keuchel to SP (from RP)
Jonathan Pettibone to RP (from Reserves/DL)
 
For the purposes of the first chunk of the season, until Jurickson heals:
 
Jurickson Profar to Reserves/DL (from SS)
Adeiny Hechavarria to SS (from BP)
Kyle Blanks to BP (from Reserves/DL)
 
And I'll do this too, although there'd be some switching around based on lefty/righty matchups:
 
Josh Willingham to DH (from BP)
Jesus Montero to BP (from DH)
 
Obviously, Bundy and Profar are back in action as soon as they are healthy and playing the majors.  If they are available as active in the simulation, then keep them in their positions, PW.  But for the "actual" roster, these are my current changes.
 

PrometheusWakefield

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FWIW, it doesn't seem like there is a way to micromanage these kinds of roster and lineup decisions for the whole league without going insane. I set primary position changes, like Rosenthal as SP or Mauer as C or Lawrie as 2B. But beyond that it's gonna be up to your managers to decide who plays where and when, e.g. the AI. 
 

MakMan44

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Eck'sSneakyCheese said:
Big thanks for setting that up PW. I'll be really interested to see the outcome.
Terri wins 3 straight WS. Weren't you paying attention to him at all during the draft?
 

Eck'sSneakyCheese

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MakMan44 said:
Terri wins 3 straight WS. Weren't you paying attention to him at all during the draft?
 
I was, but until they invent a defensive shift that requires more than 1 catcher, or the resurrection of certain pitchers, I'm not going to be overly concerned.
 

terrisus

formerly: imgran
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MakMan44 said:
Terri wins 3 straight WS. Weren't you paying attention to him at all during the draft?
Indeed.
 
Eck'sSneakyCheese said:
I was, but until they invent a defensive shift that requires more than 1 catcher, or the resurrection of certain pitchers, I'm not going to be overly concerned.
You'll all be jealous when you're pulling your backup outfielders to fill in at catcher so that your pitchers aren't just throwing every pitch straight to the backstop.
And, Pedro doesn't need to be resurrected, everyone can bask in his glory just fine.
 

Eck'sSneakyCheese

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terrisus said:
Indeed.
 

You'll all be jealous when you're pulling your backup outfielders to fill in at catcher so that your pitchers aren't just throwing every pitch straight to the backstop.
And, Pedro doesn't need to be resurrected, everyone can bask in his glory just fine.
 
You mean bask in his (Soul) Glo
 

BoredViewer

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If someone wants to grab 3 reserves for my team, please do.
 
Here is my lineup.
 
Ellsbury - CF
Utley - 2B
Freeman - 1B
Butler - DH
Morse - RF
Johnson - 3B
Ludwick - LF
Avila/Holiday - C
Aybar - SS
 
 
Avila/Holiday is my only true platoon.
McGehee will get some starts at 3B.
Johnson will flex to 2B/LF as needed (with Morse/Ludwick playing RF in those instances).
 
I wouldn't expect the top-3 or bottom-2 in the lineup to change, outside of someone getting a day off.  If Morse is back to being "The Beast," then I could see Butler moving down.
 
There are some age/injury history concerns, but when healthy (and they are, now) - I'd expect this to initially be one of the more productive lineups in our league.  
 
 
Pitching:
 
My plan was to go for solid and durable for my top-3 SP, then roll the dice on some journeymen.
Hamels, Bailey, and Dickey would be the first 3... and Wandy, Hammel, and Baker the journeymen.  
 
I drafted early and often for my bullpen.  I expect them to be a strength of the team and provide a lot of tasty options through innings 6-9.
 
Kimbrel, Chapman, Jansen, Benoit, and Bell.
 
 
 
Overall... I'm pleased with my draft.
 
* I worried the most about the Butler pick.  I really liked his offensive profile as my 4th bat - but, he is a full-time DH and that does create some flexibility issues.  I came close to picking Rios and probably would in a re-draft.  
* I didn't plan on drafting 3 top relievers.  which isn't to say I was disappointed with their availability.  I think they'll prove to be good value - but, in both cases (Chapman/Jansen), there were a series of bats I would've chosen that ended up getting taken.
* Weren't a lot of catchers left... though not many needed one... if I'd taken Rios earlier, could've used the Avila spot to snag one of several decent bats... and probably grabbed Avila, etc. in a later round.
* I think I had a run of later good value picks with Johnson, Morse, Aybar, and Ludwick.  
 

PrometheusWakefield

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So a post about settings while I run the results:
 
I decided to clear all injuries other than those that we knew about going into the draft (e.g. Daniel Hudson). It seemed strange to include injuries that have happened since the beginning of this season, especially since this was starting from the beginning - why should Ivan Nova be on the DL in this league on April 1 when he didn't get hurt until later. Obviously the league will have it's own injuries to deal with.
 
I eliminated the ability of the AI to trade, but I couldn't limit their ability to sign FAs or manage their rosters as they choose beyond that without creating huge headaches for the simulation. I compensated for this a bit by making all the potential FAs and non-drafted rookies really bad, so if you're dipping into that pool you hopefully are getting replacement level players at best. 
 
I basically just assigned teams to leagues based on draft order - so the "AL East" starts with wibi who take over from Baltimore, and so on down. I stayed with this format even though it meant that my team ended up being the Yankees, which sucks not only because the Yankees suck but because the Yankees have a hitter friendly ballpark and I imagined this team being a pitching friendly team. But whatever, I wanted to make sure I was doing all these things in a way that was truly random and didn't benefit my team at all so I didn't switch it. 
 
Season is simulating as I write this.
 

PrometheusWakefield

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Eck'sSneakyCheese said:
Really awesome PW. What team did i end up as?
Angels. 
 
Having to adjust settings again. Somehow the trick of reducing the quality of FAs available didn't work as I thought it would and I'm now resigned to manually deleting any FA good enough to be relevant.
 

Eck'sSneakyCheese

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PrometheusWakefield said:
Angels. 
 
Having to adjust settings again. Somehow the trick of reducing the quality of FAs available didn't work as I thought it would and I'm now resigned to manually deleting any FA good enough to be relevant.
Angels, huh? Egh, that's not bad.
 
I'll say it again thanks for your work in putting this together. 
 

MakMan44

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dylanmarsh said:
I guess I missed something here.  Are we drafting reserve players to replace DL'd players?
Yup. 3 more players. Throw them up whenever you want, I don't know if they're on the list yet so you may have to check the last page too. 
 

dylanmarsh

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All right, then:
 
  1. Colin McHugh, SP2
  2. Nick Maronde, RP
  3. Kevin Kouzmanoff, BP
 
Then,
 
  1. Derek Holland to DL
  2. Casey Janssen to DL
  3. Henry Urrutia to Reserves
 

PrometheusWakefield

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So obvious caveats: this shouldn't be taken as any kind of definitive evaluation of these teams, it's clear from the few times I've been through adjusting various rule problems that there will be wide differences in outcomes. Injuries and AI decisions loom large, especially as the teams are fairly even. I'm thinking I'll actually run the Year 1 season a few more times to get a sense of what the overall sample looks like while also running a few more seasons of this league. 
 
Regular Season Results
 
AL EAST:
1. Roma Legio X - 87-75. 
Monster seasons by Jose Bautista (47 HR), Corey Dickerson (.312 20 HR) and Mike Carp (36 HR) made up for a subpar season from Kershaw (3.37 ERA).  Pitching was decent overall (3.65 ERA) mostly because the bullpen was extremely good.
 
2. Nous Defions 80-82
ND was competitive with the Roma through August but fell apart following season ending surgery to Mike Trout. Breakout seasons from Shuck (.340), Hosmer and Rosario were done in by surprisingly poor performance from the rotation, especially Estrada (5.34 ERA), Cobb (4.80 ERA), and Archer (5.22 ERA). 
 
3. Ben's Old Catchers 71-91 
Injuries took most of Madison Bumgarner and Martin Perez' seasons and the rest of the rotation was mostly ineffective, posting the worst ERA in either league (4.95). The offense was merely average as McCutchen had a relatively down season for him. 
 
4. Head Hunters 71-91
The Head Hunters lost Lee for most of the season and were hurt by Miguel Cabrera losing about 40 games worth of time, and overall the offense didn't perform that well with a .725 OPS. The bottom third of the order - Barney, Rollins and for some reason Gillespie got a lot of time - were terrible. 
 
5. The Best Catch 66-96
TBC's young rotation performed badly, as Ross and Kazmir both got hurt and Hutchison, Morton and Chatwood all weren't very good. The team hit pretty well though and honestly it's a bit of a surprise to me they didn't do better looking at the individual stats. Maybe poor karma.
 
AL Central
 
1. Dylan Marsh 84-79
Derek Holland not going down with offseason knee surgery turned out to be key for Dylan Marsh, as he went 18-12 with a 2.90 ERA and led a pitching staff that posted the best ERA in the American League (3.42) with Cueto, Richards, Haren and De La Rosa all posting good seasons. The lineup was pretty good although didn't really have a clear clean up hitter.
 
2. Green Mountain Boys 83-80
GMB was hurt by depth problems - Brett Gardner lost 8 months to injury, and for some reason the AI response was to sign a replacement level 1B and put Moss in RF. Kuroda turned into a disaster, hurting the rotation. On the other hand, Dustin McGowan had a terrific season and the rest of the pitching staff was pretty good.
 
3. Concord Koch Grabbers 80-82
Pitching was a strength of the Koch Grabbers across the board - probably would have been even better if the AI had let Archie Bradley start the year in the rotation. The offense, however, was not good. Stanton got lost for most of the season and Bryant was a disaster in the cleanup spot (.209 with 13 HR). Paco Rodriguez had a breakout year.
 
4. Riverbottom Nightmare 76-86
The Nightmare got solid seasons from the middle of the order - Posey, Arcia, and Zimmerman - but for some reason the AI played Jeff Decker in left field and batted him sixth and he hit .190. Rotation was a problem - Sanchez was bad, Huff was a disaster, and Chen got hurt. 
 
5. Irish Wolfhounds 74-88
The Wolfhounds ended up sort of average both offensively and defensively. Cargo didn't perform as you'd hope from a top pick, Trumbo and Brantley were bad and Dee Gordon as a leadoff hitter was probably not a great idea. Jacob Turner had a breakout season to lead the rotation, but the rest were all average.
 
AL West
1. Wonderbeards 90-72
Breakout seasons by Tavares, Ventura and Amarista and a monster year from Puig powered the Wonderbeards to the best OPS in baseball and the AL West crown. Ventrua, Eovaldi, Mejia and Walker all had good years in the rotation.
 
2. New Jersey Sox Fan 86-76 WC1
NJSF won the wildcard despite losing 7 consecutive games to end the season. A monster year by Votto and surprising seasons from guys like Detrich, Petit and Gonzalez were key.
 
3. Rich Garces Belly 86-76 WC2
Damn it, somehow Matt Harvey's injury didn't take and he had a good year for RGB. Well, I'm not reseting the whole thing after writing all this. You can feel free to discount his 2.8 WAR. RGB came out as a pretty good pitching team across the board with an offense that was good enough despite a poorer than expected season from Goldschmidt. 
 
4. Danny Darwin 82-20
Ike Davis had a pretty good bounce back year and Adrian Beltre was awesome but the back end of the pitching staff fell apart, as Grimm, Harang and Milone all got shelled.
 
5. Mad Crappers 75-87
Mad Crappers lost Jose Fernandez for the season and the rotation was only pretty good after that, while the offense suffered from a lack of power, with only Adam Dun posting 20 HRs.
 
NL East
1. SoxFan58 87-75
Terrisus was ahead for most of the season but must have collapsed near the end. SoxFan got breakout seasons from Alex Gordon (4.8 WAR) and Mike Olt (3.3 WAR) while Darvish, Fister, Wilson and Doubront were all solid in the rotation and the bullpen was excellent as well.
 
2. Terrisus 81-81
Not sure what happened to Terrisus in September but I think it might have something to do with an injury to Verlander. Terrisus actually was about even with SoxFan defensively and was quite a bit better offensively, so there may have been some karma problems. The rotation was solid across the board and the lineup was solid, although Mauer had a mediocre season for him (2.4 WAR) and the offense suffered from lack of strength - no player had a better WAR than 3.0.
 
3. El Tigre Chino 80-82
The rotation came out sort of average, as the AI stupidly put Snydergaard in the bullpen (where he was excellent) and Workman and Lincecum were below average. Offensively neither Bruce nor Hanley were as good as you'd think, but Gose, Martin and Sano took steps forward.
 
4. Keninten 79-83
Keninten appears to have the best fielding team in the league, although it's hard to read OOTP's fielding stats. It certainly seemed to help his rotation, as Johnson, Nicaiso, and Bettis all had good years. The problem was offense, as Fowler, Bourjos and Gyorko all struggled at the top of the lineup and only one player had over 20 HRs.
 
5. StabMastaArson 66-96
Lots of things went wrong for StabMastaArson this year. Boegarts was awful, David Murphy was maybe the worst player in the league (-1.3 WAR), Peralta was awful, somehow Derek Norris found himself hitting third in the lineup. The rotation was average at best, with Billingsley, Masterson and Parker all posting below average seasons.
 
NL Central
1. Scrote Squad 96-66
Scrote Squad had a good offensive year, posting an OPS near the top of the league behind a well balanced offense and breakout / bounceback campaigns from Pederson, Logan Morrison and Wil Myers. Luebke, Odorizzi and Hughes were all solid in the rotation and the bullpen was excellent.
 
2. Bored Viewer 91-71 WC
Bored Viewer managed to secure the top Wild Card spot despite not having a very good rotation at all, with Hamels having a disaster year with a 5.55 ERA. Freeman, Aybar, Butler and Utley all had terrific years to lead the offense while the bullpen was extremely good across the board.
 
3. Logglobo Vlandignorf 85-77
Pretty good team both offensively and defensively, Rendon had a breakout year with 5.8 WAR and Iwakuma was among the best in the league. OOTP got Tanaka wrong though, he was mediocre. 
 
4. BigMike 82-80
This team seems like it was done in by some highly questionable AI decisions - for example, starting Slade Heathcott and especially batting him leadoff, while Khris Davis hit 28 HR in the 7 spot. This was a very good lineup with power spread throughout - only Heathcott managed less than 14 HR. The rotation was fairly bad - McAllister, Phelps and Teheren all were mediocre.
 
5. Tax Man 75-87
Tax Man's team was killed by terrible seasons from Chris Davis (.9 WAR) and Chris Carter (-.6 WAR) which left the middle of the Tax Man lineup pretty bad. The rotation was average, but not as good seasons as you'd expect from Cingrani and Price hurt the team.
 
NL West
1. Why Not Grebeck 98-64
The best regular season record goes to Why Not Grebeck, who rode an incredible rotation top 3 of Strasburg (8 WAR!), Beachy (6.4 WAR), and, ahem, Taylor Jordan (5.3 WAR) to the NL West crown. A strong team defense may have helped. Overall WNG had a 2.87 team ERA. The lineup was OK, although Springer did not do that well in his rookie year and Choo and Headley took steps backwards.
 
2. Kramerica Industries 91-71 WC2
Kramerica takes the other wild card spot with solid seasons from their rotation of Greinke, Liriano and Samadijzjzja and a major breakout season from Anthony Rizzo. Middle of the order was strong with Wright and Jones putting up good years.
 
3. Leskanic's Thread 80-82
Leskanic had a pretty good offense, with Profar breaking out with a 4.4 WAR season and Joyce breaking out with a 5.4 WAR. He was hurt by a terrible year from Pedroia (2.4 WAR) though and his pitching wasn't that great - Cashner, Quintana, Ramirez and Bundy all were sort of average.
 
4. Kenny Fing Powers 77-85
 
5. Shadynastys 73-89
 
I'll post more on these two teams later tonight, then run the post-season.
 
Best teams by OPS:
Wonderbeards .769
Bored Viewer .765
Nous Defions .761
Scrote Squad .760
Kenny Fing Powers .760
 
Best teams by ERA: 
Why Not Grebeck 2.87
Dylan Marsh 3.46
Scrote Squad 3.54
Concord Koch Grabbers 3.55
Shadynastys 3.56
 

terrisus

formerly: imgran
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PrometheusWakefield said:
NL East
1. SoxFan58 87-75
Terrisus was ahead for most of the season but must have collapsed near the end. SoxFan got breakout seasons from Alex Gordon (4.8 WAR) and Mike Olt (3.3 WAR) while Darvish, Fister, Wilson and Doubront were all solid in the rotation and the bullpen was excellent as well.
 
2. Terrisus 81-81
Not sure what happened to Terrisus in September but I think it might have something to do with an injury to Verlander. Terrisus actually was about even with SoxFan defensively and was quite a bit better offensively, so there may have been some karma problems. The rotation was solid across the board and the lineup was solid, although Mauer had a mediocre season for him (2.4 WAR) and the offense suffered from lack of strength - no player had a better WAR than 3.0.
 
 
Bah. Sounds kind of like I'm the 2011 Red Sox.
I'll just hire Bobby Valentine for next year, and then the year after will be great!
 
Seriously though, thanks for doing this, pretty awesome. I'd love to get a detailed break-out of the full team stats.
 

wibi

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Great work PW.  Like seriously awesome badass work
 
You running this on OOTP15 or 14?  Mind sharing the save files so other could fiddle around with them?
 

Leskanic's Thread

lost underscore
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That really is great -- thanks for running it.  Will be interesting to see either a few more simulations of this season, or if it's possible to sim the next five years.  (And it sounds like I need to cave and get OOTP .)
 

Why Not Grebeck?

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First off: my injury replacement dudes. Eduardo Escobar BN, LaTroy Hawkins, RP, and Carlos Torres, RP.
 
Beachy, Colome, and Medlen to DL. 
 

Why Not Grebeck?

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Second of all, I can't believe how great my team was in that simulation! I'm pretty thrilled to have gotten the best regular season record, even if it was only based on one random sim. It makes me feel like I did this exercise right. Oh, to live in a world where Stephen Strasburg is that otherworldly good and Brandon Beachy never got hurt...
 
In an ideal world where everyone is healthy, my team looks like this:
 
1. LF Shin-Soo Choo
2. SS Andrelton Simmons
3. 2B Daniel Murphy
4. 3B Chase Headley
5. DH Kendrys Morales
6. CF George Springer
7. C AJ Ellis
8. RF Cody Ross
9. 1B Justin Smoak
 
SP1: Stephen Strasburg
SP2: Kris Medlen
SP 3: Brandon Beachy
SP 4: Andrew Heaney
SP 5: Franklin Morales (won the job over Taylor Jordan and Carlos Carrasco in Spring Training)
 
CL: Joakim Soria
SU: LaTroy Hawkins
RP 3: Al Albuquerque
RP 4 (LOOGY): Boone Logan
RP 5: Yoervis Medina
RP 6: Carlos Torres
RP 7: Henry Owens (Long relief/emergency starter)
 
Bench C: Martin Maldonaldo
Bench OF: Abraham Almonte
Bench IF #1: Danny Espinosa 
Bench IF #2: Eduardo Escobar
 
I'm happy as hell to go to battle with that crew. Deep line-up, deep rotation, great defense, solid bench, and a damned fine bullpen, even if they're all quite old. 
 

Eck'sSneakyCheese

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Considering both AL WCs came from my division I'm psyched I came out on top. Leading the league in OPS is awesome because that was my focus going into this.
 

Why Not Grebeck?

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In reality, my team has had a dodgy (at best) spring. 
 
The rotation, once thought to be a strength of this team, has been a short term weakness. Strasburg's ERA is over 5 right now, Beachy and Medlen are hurt, and Carracso and Jordan both have ERAs over 6. Morales and Heaney (he's been great in AAA, so I'm dreaming here) have been the two lone bright spots, as has Owens' work in the bullpen so far (again, been great in the minors this spring.) Fans are clamoring for Carrasco in particular to lose his rotation spot to Owens, but my manager wants to give him a slightly longer leash.
 
The bullpen has been okay, not great, as Alburquerque continues to be enigmatic and Logan is struggling to find himself again after injury. 
 
The line-up has done a little better, though runs have struggled to be driven in. The top of the line-up has been excellent, with Choo, Murphy, and Simmons all delivering as expected, but Headley's struggles in the clean-up spot have been epic - and that's when he's made it onto the field. Morales has been filling in there, and has been okay, but not great. (in reality, who knows? he needs to sign somewhere so I can see him play...) At the bottom of the line-up, Springer has had some great at-bats but has also shown why he's a rookie. Smoak started the season like a house on fire, but has cooled down considerably since then. Almonte has done an okay job filling in for Ross during his early season injury recovery, especially defensively, and some fans want him to have the CF job permanently with Springer slotted over to LF instead of Ross. My manager is considering a full-time Almonte/Ross platoon with Almonte playing CF against righties and Springer playing CF when Ross plays against lefties. Espinosa, filling in at third base for the injured Headley in many games, has shown why he had so much promise a few years back. Maldonaldo has been totally fine filling in for AJ Ellis, who should be back in the line-up soon.
 
Right now, the Burbank Bombers are 10-12 and right in the thick of the race. They'll need some of their good young players, especially Heaney and Owens, to keep pitching well if they're going to make the playoffs this year. 
 

Yelling At Clouds

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This is cool. Makes me want to play OOtP also!
 
PrometheusWakefield said:
 
 
4. Danny Darwin 82-20
Ike Davis had a pretty good bounce back year and Adrian Beltre was awesome but the back end of the pitching staff fell apart, as Grimm, Harang and Milone all got shelled.
 
 
I have to think something else went wrong for my AI manager to rely on those three heavily enough that they were able to tank my season. Only one of them was intended as a rotation piece in the first place.
 

Scoops Bolling

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Starting Rotation
1) Max Scherzer
2) Mat Latos
3) Marcus Stroman
4) Chris Tillman
5) Edwin Jackson
 
Bullpen:
1) Kelvin Herrera
2) Nate Jones
3) Chris Withrow
4) Zach Britton
5) Joel Peralta
6) Neil Wagner
7) Brian Matusz
 
Lineup:
1) Austin Jackson
2) Michael Bourn
3) Nick Swisher
4) Josh Donaldson
5) Carlos Quentin
6) Chris Iannetta
7) Kolten Wong
8) David DeJesus
9) Javier Baez
 
Reserves:
Joe Wieland SP (Didn't realize he was out until mid-season...woops!)
Fernando Salas RP
Rafael Furcal BP
 
 
General Overview: Excellent pitching, hitting really depends on how some of the older vets bounce back (the Indians' pair and DeJesus...not looking so hot right now). Overall, I'd say that pitching staff would stack up against any in the league as reflected by the simulation, and the lineup does have some bright spots, and at the end of the year, it really would come down to how many close games this team can win.
 
Season to Date Overview: Latos has been out, but Scherzer is pitching like a Cy Young contender and Stroman is annihilating AAA so I think he'd be doing fine in the MLB, while Tillman continues to pitch like he did last year. E-Jax has gotten blown up thus far, but a .400 BABIP accounts for most of that...and that's unlikely to continue. Jones has been replaced in the pen by Salas due to injury, and with the exception of Brian Matsuz, the entire pen has been ridiculous to date, with both Withrow and Britton putting up sub 1.00 ERAs.
 
Unfortunately, the hitting has not been so hot. While Austin Jackson is having a career year and Josh Donaldson continues his all around excellence, injuries to Quentin, Baez, and Bourn immediately tested the team, while Wong, Swisher, and DeJesus have all been varying shades of disastrous out of the gate. There does appear to be a bit of a MI controversy growing, as Donnie Murphy was impressive in filling in during Baez's injury, and with both Baez and Wong struggling, there appears to be some support for replacing the injured Quentin with the near ready Rafael Furcal, and platooning the rookies with the veterans. Unfortunately there is no easy solution to the OF or 1B problems, as David Lough has been even worse than DeJesus, and Swisher is the only 1B on the team. Overall, the team will need to rely on productivity out of the top half of the order, and hope for a healthy Carlos Quentin and a return of Swisher's power stroke...because it looks like regardless of how things are maneuvered, the bottom of the order is not going to be good.
 

Yelling At Clouds

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Rotation:
1) Felix Hernandez
2) Jordan ZImmermann
3) Tim Hudson
4) Jake Peavy
5) Tommy Milone (simulation be damned)
6) Aaron Harang (working out of the bullpen to start)
 
I'm pretty ok with this group, poor results of the sim notwithstanding. I think the top four has a chance to be excellent and the Milone/Harang duo can keep the team in games. 
 
Bullpen
1) Burch Smith
2) Justin Grimm
3) Tony Watson
4) Brian Wilson
5) Drew Storen
 
Less than psyched about this group. Feliz is out with an arm injury right now and in general seems to be kind of a mess. If he can get his act together, I'd feel somewhat better.
 
Lineup:
1) Everth Cabrera (SS)
2) Christian Yelich (LF)
3) Carlos Beltran (DH)
4) Adrian Beltre (3B)
5) Ike Davis (1B)
6) Jason Castro (C)
7) Neil Walker (2B)
8) Michael Choice (RF)
9) Gregor Blanco (CF)
 
Bench
1) Marlon Byrd
2) Josh Vitters
3) Eric Sogard
4) Ryan Hanigan
5) Nate Freiman
 
My idea would be to use Blanco and Byrd as a sort of offense/defense platoon beyond the standard L-R setup. With Beltre out, I'd use a combination of Vitters and Brock Holt!, but it looks like Beltre will be back by the weekend.
 
DL - Neftali Feliz (ugh)
Reserves - Brock Holt! and Travis Snider (who I might rather just have on the team as of now)
 
 
Overall, I think a just-above-.500 record sounds about right for this bunch, with some room for growth should things break right.
 

dylanmarsh

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1. Dylan Marsh 84-79
Derek Holland not going down with offseason knee surgery turned out to be key for Dylan Marsh, as he went 18-12 with a 2.90 ERA and led a pitching staff that posted the best ERA in the American League (3.42) with Cueto, Richards, Haren and De La Rosa all posting good seasons. The lineup was pretty good although didn't really have a clear clean up hitter.
 
Oh, c'mon.  Tulo isn't a good enough clean-up hitter?
 
Here's my final roster:
 
LINEUP
1) Melky Cabrera, LF
2) Anthony Rendon, 2B
3) David Ortiz, DH
4) Aramis Ramirez, 3B
5) Yadier Molina, C
6) Andre Ethier / Chris Denorfia, RF
7) Carlos Gomez, CF
8) Yonder Alonso / Tyler Moore, 1B
9) Stephen Drew / DJ LeMahieu, SS
 
ROTATION
1) Masahiro Tanaka
2) Hisashi Iwakuma
3) Kyle Lohse
4) Dan Straily
5) Josh Beckett
(Robbie Erlin, Jimmy Nelson, and Aaron Sanchez as backup)

 
BENCH
C Ryan Lavarnway
2B/SS DJ LeMahieu
OF Chris Denorfia
1B/LF Tyler Moore

 
BULLPEN
Robbie Erlin, L
Jimmy Nelson, R
Dan Otero, R
Marc Rzepczynski, L (LOOGY)
Charlie Furbush, L
Tyler Clippard, R
Francisco Rodriguez, R (Closer)
 
RESERVES
Aaron Sanchez, SP
Ehire Adrianza, INF
Brandon Guyer, OF
 
Like everybody else, I'm very happy with my team at this point, and think that, realistically, we would win all the games.  Despite this, I acknowledge that my team probably has both strengths and weaknesses.
 
STRENGTHS
+ Relentless Lineup: My main goal was to make a lineup with a solid hitter at every position, giving the pitcher no chance to rest.  I think I've succeeded there, especially if one of my first basemen emerges as competent.
+ Pitching Depth: Pitchers get injured like all the time for no reason, and being left with only four starters can submarine a season.  I've got eight that I'd trust, and feel good about my staff's odds of making it through the long season intact.
 
WEAKNESSES
- Lack of Versatility: I used three platoons in my starting lineup, and took a dedicated DH, so I don't have too many ways to shift things around if multiple players get injured.  I'll also have to play platoons off-handed to rest players on occasion.
- Kinda Aggressive: Between Melky, Gomez, and Yadier, it's unlikely that this team will be much better than average at taking pitches and knocking out opposing starters.
 
THE FIRST THREE WEEKS...
Thus far in the young season, my team has put together a .290/.335/.457 line on offense*.  Our pitching has combined for a 2.77 ERA and 1.08 WHIP, with 9.4 K/9 and 2.8 BB/9.  Using base runs, we'd be expected to score 5.56 runs per game and give up 3.30 runs per game, for an expected Pythagorean winning percentage of 72.6%.  So far, so good!
 
(* - I'm using www.kilg.us to track my team's stats.)
 

PrometheusWakefield

Member
SoSH Member
May 25, 2009
10,441
Boston, MA
FWIW, the playoffs:
 
AL Wild card: New Jersey Sox Fan defeats Rich Garces Belly
NL Wild card: Bored Viewer defeats Kramerica Industries
 
ALDS: 
Wonderbeards defeats New Jersey Sox Fan 3-1
Dylan Marsh defeats Roma Legio X 3-1
 
NLDS: 
Bored Viewer defeats Why Not Grebeck 3-2
SoxFan58 defeats Scrote Squad 3-2
 
LCS:
Wonderbeards defeat Dylan Marsh 4-3
SoxFan58 defeat Bored Viewer 4-1
 
World Series
SoxFan58 defeats Wonderbeards 4-2
 

PrometheusWakefield

Member
SoSH Member
May 25, 2009
10,441
Boston, MA
So help me out here. The OOTP screen has a bunch of league reports (expanded standings, team stats, etc) that you can open in a chrome browser. What's the best way to make those pages accessible to you guys? 
 
Then there are the game files for anyone else who wants to use this on their versions of OOTP (it's OOTP 15 btw). Those are big. Like 7885 files in 34 folders taking up 340 MB big, and you might want either the league that I just ran, or the backup I saved right at the beginning of the season. It might be that there's some cloud gaming way to share that but I don't have time to figure it out right now. 
 

PrometheusWakefield

Member
SoSH Member
May 25, 2009
10,441
Boston, MA
Scoops Bolling said:
I'd hope my team was wracked by injuries in that simulation. Guessing it must have hated Wong/Baez too...
Baez wasn't great, .696 OPS, but Wong was actually pretty good .703 OPS and 3.0 WAR. Lots of bad performances up and down the lineup. Bourn was awful, Justin Turner got 447 at bats despite hitting .190 with no power, Molina got 455 at bats and no power. Turner and Molina ended up with WARs of -2.5 and -2.6, respectively. I wonder what your talk radio stations were saying about those lineup decisions. Pitching staff was excellent, better in the rotation than the bullpen. Needless to say, you were playing at Petco. 
 
Kenny Fing Powers was playing in Colorado, and not surprisingly the heart of his lineup (Braun Hamilton Holliday Gonzalez) was fierce, and Lowrie and Scooter Gannett even chipped in with a little power. But both Hamilton and Holliday both lost time to injuries. The pitching was top-heavy: Sale and Wood pitched like aces, but after that Gee was only ok and everyone else was degrees of bad. The team badly under-performed their pythag. I blame Ryan Braun.
 

wibi

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
11,839
PrometheusWakefield said:
Then there are the game files for anyone else who wants to use this on their versions of OOTP (it's OOTP 15 btw). Those are big. Like 7885 files in 34 folders taking up 340 MB big, and you might want either the league that I just ran, or the backup I saved right at the beginning of the season. It might be that there's some cloud gaming way to share that but I don't have time to figure it out right now. 
 
Quickest way is to take all the files and package them into a zip or rar file and put them up on dropbox or googledrive where you can share a single download link.
 

Scoops Bolling

Member
SoSH Member
Jun 19, 2007
5,874
PrometheusWakefield said:
Baez wasn't great, .696 OPS, but Wong was actually pretty good .703 OPS and 3.0 WAR. Lots of bad performances up and down the lineup. Bourn was awful, Justin Turner got 447 at bats despite hitting .190 with no power, Molina got 455 at bats and no power. Turner and Molina ended up with WARs of -2.5 and -2.6, respectively. I wonder what your talk radio stations were saying about those lineup decisions. Pitching staff was excellent, better in the rotation than the bullpen. Needless to say, you were playing at Petco. 
 
Kenny Fing Powers was playing in Colorado, and not surprisingly the heart of his lineup (Braun Hamilton Holliday Gonzalez) was fierce, and Lowrie and Scooter Gannett even chipped in with a little power. But both Hamilton and Holliday both lost time to injuries. The pitching was top-heavy: Sale and Wood pitched like aces, but after that Gee was only ok and everyone else was degrees of bad. The team badly under-performed their pythag. I blame Ryan Braun.
Can't claim I've even heard of Justin Turner.